Autism: Evolution?

It's much, much simpler than that. In reality, autism has become an umbrella term. Countless illnesses are getting tossed into this category because people don't understand any of them.

Autism is the next step in evolution like fat people are the next step in evolution during a famine.

or simply the increase in radiation emanating from these products is causing birth defects

second line

God Bless

reply to post by ShadowZion


wow im replying to myself, i didnt know you could do that but anyway.

sometimes the simplest answers are staring us in the face.

Radiation is the answer to all our problems....not evolution....not adaptation.....

what was not present in such excess before these things? an increase in Radiation

we have seen the effect of chemicals on humans

agent orange etc.....

who knows maybe a computer does the same thing....not too good considering im using one right now haha

God bless

wow, that is me but on a higher function. Thanks for the post.

Hmm I like the idea , however isnt evolution a benefit to the species , therefore how would loosing the ability to communicate verbally in replacement for online chat with a keyboard a benefit !

We would be losing the most primal of our abilities of communication which probably took millions of years to develop to its current state in the first place.

Our natural ability to communicate cant be turned off just like the internet , how does nature know that computers will be indefinite in order for us to loose our verbal communication.

That doesnt sound very rewarding for our species.

Only once humans bridge the gap between man and machine and we become biologically mixed with computers can we evolve with our own technology.

i don't think people on this thread are well enough versed in evolution to even speculate on it's involvement(well maybe i saw one person who was).
autism and all autism spectrum "disorders" are pretty neutral when it comes to survival, which is what evolution is about.
plenty of people who are autistic can and have children, and those who have the same genes as someone who develops autism can just as well not develop it but can pass the genes on, just like any other development "disorder".

no, autism is not the next step in evolution, there is not "next step", evolution doesn't work that way. if it doesn't assist in survival of a lifeform, generally it isn't evolution, it is just a mutation a pretty neutral one. autism could have always been around and was labeled something else, like demonic possession, insanity, stupidity or touched by the gods.
do we really have that many diagnosis of people in the past? the field of psychology only began in the 19th century and as the OP said autism wasn't discovered until the 30's.

why do people conclude that it has to be the result of something modern? there is no logical reason to assume so except as an excuse to start a witchhunt, we don't know the cause, it may just be as i said: a mutation, or a set of mutations that are neutral to our survival.

(excuse the way i post i do as i have AS )

Originally posted by sapien82
Hmm I like the idea , however isnt evolution a benefit to the species , therefore how would loosing the ability to communicate verbally in replacement for online chat with a keyboard a benefit !

We would be losing the most primal of our abilities of communication which probably took millions of years to develop to its current state in the first place.

Our natural ability to communicate cant be turned off just like the internet , how does nature know that computers will be indefinite in order for us to loose our verbal communication.

That doesnt sound very rewarding for our species.

Only once humans bridge the gap between man and machine and we become biologically mixed with computers can we evolve with our own technology.

it can be a neutral mutation and we can still carry it, we have lots of mutations and leftovers that don't affect our survival. they may just propagate over time simply because it doesn't hurt us to carry these genes.
some people carry a recessive dwarfism gene but aren't dwarfs, but if they have children with someone with that gene too they will more likely have children with dwarfism, but it doesn't hurt their survival to be a dwarf.
so the gene is carried on, even though it doesn't benefit the decedents, only when it makes it impossible to pass it on will the gene be gone, like say if you live somewhere where being that short would get you eaten.

(not picking on dwarfs though! err well i mean little people, warwick davis is awesome, i love him on life is short.)

reply to post by demongoat


actually dwarfism can decrease your chances of survival.

imagine we are in the wild and a bunch of lions are chasing you and your family, the smaller members i.e the children will be slower than the adults simply because their legs are smaller therefore their stride is less, therefore they need to make more steps to keep up.

this is the case with every species of animal, why a lion will pick up its cub and run with it in the even of danger because it cannot run fast enough due to there small size.

now if you take dwarfism, where a persons legs and arms are out of proportion with the rest of their body, there stride most likely will be less than that of a child due to uneven bone structure. or what have you.

so in cases such as this dwarfism would most likely cause the death of a person.

In olden days aswell as with animals, as i have seen cases such as this, if a baby animal is born with defects it is usually left behind because it will only pass on the unwanted gene.

so for survival and the future of the herd/whatever's maintenance to health the weak are left behind.

im not saying leave them behind but for survival it is a flaw.

i mean no offense by what i have said.

God bless

Thats my point , that man made technology isnt natural and so cannot be incorporated into the natural evolution of our species until we bridge the man machine gap .

The evolution of our species is the literal mucking out of our gene pool by making genes redundant , and making sure that the bad genes are lost , however due to our apparent free will , we are effectively continuing our gene diversity by choosing whichever partner we like .
Or are we subconsciously choosing partners for the protection of our strong genes!

Either way I dont think Autism is the evolution of our species , it certainly needs more research and discussion because it is not yet fully understood and needs constant revision.


I think human evolution is going to take us into trans humanism , once we overcome the pitfalls of biological evolution we will have become god. We will have eliminated all potential defects in our gene pool through medical science and our species will be a mix of biological and machine .

The best way I can explain this is through masamune shirow's Appleseed manga .
The future of the human race is already depicted quite well in this series.

reply to post by ShadowZion


in this picture you have painted the dwarf of the family would surely be picked off first if being chased by a predator because it couldnt outrun the beast.
However if it came to it and the family happened upon an outcrop of rocks , then the dwarf would survive as he/she would be able to crawl into the smaller spaces between the rocks and avoid being eaten
whilst the larger members of the family couldnt and would be eaten.

Depends on which side of the coin you look at it !

reply to post by sapien82


they gotta get to the rocks first

second line

reply to post by ValentineWiggin


I used to be a preschool teacher for a couple of years and would see the occasional autistic child....they were frustrating to work with it, but at times they were so brilliant. I remember a child with autism once taking my hand and using my hand as a tool to play with the toys he was using. It was like he was using me and didn't realize I was even there, but I think it was somehow his way of interacting with me in a manner he felt ok with. Autism would be a cool thing to study.

reply to post by ValentineWiggin




I thought our motto at ATS was to deny ignorance.

The 'stereotyping' being demonstrated is seriously out of touch with reality.

It comes off more as a disinformation piece and demonstrates the tendency of the 'establishment' who so desperately push the CAUSE of autism as ANYTHING but what it really is.

Humans are very cyclical, this type of absolute nonsense you're pushing happened previously with mercury poisoning many moons ago during the so called Pink Disease outbreaks caused by the so-called 'teething powders'.

Look it up!

And understand that MDs are, for the most part, totally useless in getting REAL and EFFECTIVE treatment for your child.

Those morons had a huge world-wide effort and the best 'medical minds' (can you spell oxymoron? ), actually identified the virus that 'caused' Pink Disease!

But despite all of the MDs brilliant and heroic efforts...

Pink Disease didn't stop until the mercury based teething powders stopped being sold...

When you buy into the 'establishments' views on causation... it TOTALLY cuts down on your ability to address the TRUE issues facing your child.

Here is a simple truth...

If you don't let your child be vacinated, they will NEVER 'get' autism.

It's THAT simple.

When parents stop innoculating their children, autism will simply die out...

Now that your child has been pushed off of the cliff and crashed on the rocks below, you get into trying to put the resultant mess back together, a life long commitment...

If you want answers I (and many thousand TRUE autism warriors) can help

If not, AEIOU.

Modern life is NOT for the weak.

Originally posted by Hardstepah
i do believe autism is a form of evolution in the works. my cousin is "mildly" autistic. when he was a year old his problem solving skills were insane. he knew how to work the dvd player, turn the tv on to the a/v channel so he could run the thing, and skipped to his favorite scene of godzilla every time and would even sometimes set the scene on repeat. oh and he had to use a footrest and a chair stacked on top of one another to reach it. nobody showed him how to work any of this, he just shocked me and my aunt and uncle when he just up and did it one day. was one of the craziest things i'd ever seen a child do

i noticed a somewhat higher intelligence as all of my friends and co-workers children were still drooling crap factories. i wish i could be around to see how people are in this (what i believe to be) evolution's final stage

My son does a lot of repetitive things like this. Wont speak independently much (just a word maybe two) but can repeat verbatim certain scenes in movies. It's interesting. Its like his memory functions differently. Need more coffee before I can really think about that.

Originally posted by selfharmonise
This will likely come over badly, but it is absolutely not meant to upset.

I don't think that autism is an evolutionary advantage created by emerging comms infrastructure.

What I see is that parents' love is translated into a want for their children's "specialness". They're looking for reasons their children are autistic and it's easier for them to believe its the next stage in human evolution rather than caused by a genetic or environmental or interventionist medical route.

I like the idea that they are special, and they are. But I don't believe they are an evolutionary step.

I think numbers are increasing because of two factors:

1. Environmental and medical pollutants - vaccines, petrochemical, etc.
2. Increased awareness of the syndrome in general society - what would have been diagnosed as a mental deficiency, where an individual would have been institutionalised, is now classified as autistic.

As I have said before, I don't mean to offend, but want to put across my unromantic view.

I wasn't really trying to make it seem special, just offering an idea that it could be evolution, and not that Evolution in this respect is good nor bad, just to open a dialogue of discussion on that and the implications.

Other posters I can't speak for, no offense taken my dear

Originally posted by sapien82
Hmm I like the idea , however isnt evolution a benefit to the species , therefore how would loosing the ability to communicate verbally in replacement for online chat with a keyboard a benefit !

We would be losing the most primal of our abilities of communication which probably took millions of years to develop to its current state in the first place.

Our natural ability to communicate cant be turned off just like the internet , how does nature know that computers will be indefinite in order for us to loose our verbal communication.

That doesnt sound very rewarding for our species.

Only once humans bridge the gap between man and machine and we become biologically mixed with computers can we evolve with our own technology.

Exactly. If it is evolution, is it good or bad, is it our place to say, and if it is bad in respect to what we have put in the environment then perhaps we should push to reverse what is happening?

I always thought of evolution in a sense of what is beneficial, now I wonder if we could screw that process up?

Originally posted by demongoat
i don't think people on this thread are well enough versed in evolution to even speculate on it's involvement(well maybe i saw one person who was).
autism and all autism spectrum "disorders" are pretty neutral when it comes to survival, which is what evolution is about.
plenty of people who are autistic can and have children, and those who have the same genes as someone who develops autism can just as well not develop it but can pass the genes on, just like any other development "disorder".

no, autism is not the next step in evolution, there is not "next step", evolution doesn't work that way. if it doesn't assist in survival of a lifeform, generally it isn't evolution, it is just a mutation a pretty neutral one. autism could have always been around and was labeled something else, like demonic possession, insanity, stupidity or touched by the gods.
do we really have that many diagnosis of people in the past? the field of psychology only began in the 19th century and as the OP said autism wasn't discovered until the 30's.

why do people conclude that it has to be the result of something modern? there is no logical reason to assume so except as an excuse to start a witchhunt, we don't know the cause, it may just be as i said: a mutation, or a set of mutations that are neutral to our survival.

(excuse the way i post i do as i have AS

)

It very well may be, I do not claim to be an expert on evolution or any ideas in this thread other than having an autistic child myself. I also can't lend much advice on the other end of the spectrum. I appreciate your input. The surge in Autism is what I am looking at, and it's correlation with technology, which has branched off in to many areas of discussion. The idea that we are all to stupid to understand this is just as valid as the idea I offered in the OP

Clearly autism is devolution, a slow death spiral of the species.

You can't dress it up at all, it is a horrible news story.

Originally posted by sapien82

I think human evolution is going to take us into trans humanism , once we overcome the pitfalls of biological evolution we will have become god. We will have eliminated all potential defects in our gene pool through medical science and our species will be a mix of biological and machine .

The best way I can explain this is through masamune shirow's Appleseed manga .
The future of the human race is already depicted quite well in this series.

This is where my thought process goes...if you feel it's evolution, if you feel it is a good thing, do you feel it's a step towards transhumanism, and is that good? Is that where we want to go? One of many trains of thought I have on the idea.